


Come Home

by DarthAbby



Series: Every Day With Someone New [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, Impossible Wolf, Phone Calls, Songfic, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAbby/pseuds/DarthAbby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose accidentally calls Clara from the TARDIS. Clara demands adventure stories. It just kind of escalates from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

_Hello world, hope you’re listing_   
_Forgive me if I’m young,_   
_Or speaking out of turn._   
_But there’s someone I’ve been missing,_   
_And I think that they could be_   
_The better half of me._   
_You’re in the wrong place,_   
_Trying to make it right,_   
_But I’m tired of justifying._

The calls started coming after she lost her mother. A week after she had lost the most important person in the world, a call from an unknown number popped up on Clara’s phone.

“Hello?”

_“Shareen?”_

“No? Who is this?”

_“Rose Tyler, who’s this?” _

“Clara Oswald. I think you got the wrong number.”

 _“Yeah,”_ the girl on the other end sighed. _“I did. Sorry. My phone is…well…acting really weird.”_

And Clara should have agreed, wished her luck, and hung up. But it had been an awful week, and anyone else she talked to would only use hushed whispers and offer limp condolences, and she was so sick of it that this stranger’s honest mistake and cheerful tone under the slight exasperation with technology was a breath of fresh air. “How weird is ‘really weird’?” she asked, settling down on the couch.

 _“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,”_ Rose laughed.

Clara smiled slightly. “Try me.”

 _“Well, I wanted to call my mum, but I was on a space station a few billion years in the future, so the Doctor – he’s a time travelling alien that I helped save the world a little bit ago, and now I travel with him – he did some jiggery-pokery on my phone so that I could call from anywhere and any when in the universe…”_ Clara leaned back, listening as a girl she had never met spun a tale of incredible coincidences and even more incredible adventures, from saving Charles Dickens from ghosts to watching the Earth be destroyed by the sun, billions of billions of years into the future. Rose told her the story of the Autons, and Clara clutched at a pillow, trying to remain quiet. Her mother had died that day, but Rose and this mysterious ‘Doctor’ had prevented them from killing even more people, from killing the whole world.

“You’re completely mad,” she finally said, when Rose had finished. “And I think it’s brilliant. I would love to travel like that.”

_“It’s indescribable, Clara. Looking out at the stars from the inside of a spaceship. And I think you would do brilliant, travelling with the Doctor and I.”_

“I think I’ll have to train a little first, though,” Clara laughed. “It sounds like there’s an awful lot of running to do.”

Rose laughed. _“True! I’m already regretting all the chips I ate back home.”_

Clara giggled, the first time she had done so in a week. “I have to go, but I want you to save this number, yeah? Keep me updated on whatever madness is happening that week.”

 _“I will,”_ Rose promised. _“It’s been fun talking to you, Clara. I’ll try to call you again soon.”_

_So I say to you:_   
_Come home, come home,_   
_‘cause I’ve been waiting for ya_   
_For so long, for so long,_   
_And right now there’s a war_   
_Between the vanities,_   
_But all I see is you and me._   
_And the fight for you is all I’ve ever known._   
_So come home…_

Clara practically leaped for her phone when it rang, smiling when the caller ID showed ‘Rose Tyler’. “It’s been ages since you’ve called!” she exclaimed as she answered. “I haven’t heard from you since you went to the Olympics in 2012!”

_“Clara?”_

She frowned. The connection was extremely terrible, Rose’s voice almost drowned out by static, the pops and buzzes overtaking most other sound, but Clara thought she could hear waves crashing in the background. “Rose? Are you alright?”

_“Clara, I – I can’t call anymore.”_

“What? Why not?”

_“There was an accident…and I’m trapped…”_

“But, the Doctor…he can rescue you, can’t he? Like on that impossible planet?”

 _“This is different.”_ There was a sound that might have been a muffled sob, or maybe just the static flaring up. _“I’m not even in the universe anymore.”_

“What? But – but the universe is everything! How can you not be in the universe?”

_“Because I’m in a parallel one. And there’s no way out.”_

Clara struggled to understand. Rose had told her before about a parallel reality, where she had found her almost-father, lost her almost-mother, and left her former boyfriend behind. “But you left that other one just fine, you and the Doctor.”

 _“The door between the worlds…it was letting too many bad things in. So we – we had to close it.”_ There was a definite sob now. _“Only, I – I lost my grip, and I almost fell into the Void with the Daleks, but then Pete grabbed me, and took me back to his world, and now,”_ Rose choked out the words, _“Now I’m trapped here, with no way to get home. The Doctor can’t make a new door without destroying all of reality.”_

Clara sat down slowly, hand over her mouth. “Oh, Rose…” she whispered. They still had never met in person, but both girls felt like they knew each other inside and out. Clara had always just been a phone call away – whenever things got to be too much, to alien, for Rose, she would call Clara, looking for a bit of normality to ground herself in. And vice versa, Clara would eagerly await for the next call, looking for a little slice of escapism from the drudgery of everyday life, for the next taste of adventure.

 _“I don’t have much time,”_ Rose said, and indeed, the connection was getting worse by the second. _“But, Clara, I’m going to figure this out.”_ The determination in her voice made the brunette smile slightly. Same old stubborn Rose. _“I don’t care how long it takes, I’m coming home. But, in the meantime, try to find him, yeah? He needs someone there, to hold him back. And I think you’d be brilliant at it.”_

“I’ll try,” Clara promised. She didn’t ask who Rose meant.

 _“Lovely Clara,”_ Rose half-laughed, half-cried. _“Take care of him, have some adventures. I’ll want to hear some really great stories when I get back, you hear?”_

“I hear you, Rose.”

_“Thanks, Clara. You’re –”_

The line went dead without warning, leaving Clara clutching her phone and wiping away a few stray tears. “I’ll find him, Rose,” she whispered. “For you.”

_I get lost in the beauty_   
_Of everything I see._   
_The world ain’t half as bad_   
_As they paint it to be._   
_If all the sons, all the daughters,_   
_Would stop to take it in,_   
_Well then hopefully the hate subsides_   
_And the love can begin._   
_It might start now, yeah._   
_Maybe I’m just dreaming out loud._

Time passed, both too slowly and too quickly for Clara’s liking. She kept her eyes peeled and her ears open, but for every story of a strange man with a blue box, it was always too late to find him there. Sometimes others were mentioned to be with him – a redhead who kept him on his toes, a married couple, a man who refused to die, a mad woman with crazy hair, a curious black woman with the drive to save the world, and a few others. A few times, Clara even ran into stories of the Doctor and a blonde he looked at like she had hung the moon and lit the stars and she knew that had to be Rose.

The descriptions of the Doctor changed too – she had heard at least six different descriptions for him, but they were all undeniably him. Rose had told Clara about how he could change, how tempted she was to leave after her leather-clad Northerner disappeared, how she came to realize that the ‘pretty boy’ who replaced him was still the Doctor. Clara chased him as well as she could, to the point where she started hearing stories about the Doctor and the girl who followed him, always just a few steps behind. When those stories got to the point where she started seeing herself in legends stretching back decades and centuries, she had to laugh. That was impossible, after all, without a time machine of her own.

She kept her phone on and charged at all times, even when it wasn’t really appropriate. She was clinging onto the hope that someday, Rose would call again. It wasn’t until the stars started going out that she truly realized what a lifeline that hunk of plastic was. And even then, it wasn’t until it rang with an unknown number that her heart leapt into her throat.

“Hello?”

_“Clara?”_

“Rose? Is that you?”

_“Clara!”_

“Rose! Oh, my God, where are you? Are you okay? Where’s the Doctor?”

 _“I’m fine, Clara, don’t worry. I don’t know where the Doctor is, exactly, but I’m at the house of his current companion.”_ She rattled off an address that Clara scrawled on the back of her hand.

“I’ll be right there, Rose. Ten minutes. Don’t move.”

_But until then:_   
_Come home, come home,_   
_‘cause I’ve been waiting for ya_   
_For so long, for so long,_   
_And right now there’s a war_   
_Between the vanities,_   
_But all I see is you and me._   
_And the fight for you is all I’ve ever known._   
_Ever known…_   
_So come home…_

Clara was there when the Doctor was shot.

She introduced herself in the span of five stressful seconds to a sizable group of people she had only ever known before through stories, and was threatened with death only minutes afterwards alongside them.

Clara was there when the three Doctors saved the planet.

She said goodbye to her new friends, and exchanged numbers with quite a few of them. Sarah Jane in particular was very excited to help the young teacher, and Captain Harkness made her promise to stop by sometime to exchange stories.

Clara was there when the Doctor took them to Bad Wolf Bay.

She watched silently with Donna as Jackie and the Human Doctor seemed to accept their being left behind, but when Rose protested and was shut down, she had to step in.

“Doctor?”

Time Lord and Human both turned, seemingly registering her presence for the first time. “Who’re you?”

“Clara. Clara Oswald. I’m Rose’s friend.”

The Doctor smiled tightly. “Clara Oswald. Hello.”

“Hello. Why are you leaving them here?”

“It’s the right thing to do –”

“Stopping the Daleks was the right thing to do,” she shook her head. “Leaving your friends stranded on a beach in a parallel universe? Not so much.”

“Look, you don’t under- ”

“No, I do. You’re scared of him,” she nodded towards the Human Doctor. “And a little bit of Rose, too. Of what they can do to you.”

He frowned. “That’s not –”

“It is,” she interrupted calmly. “You can’t deny that it’s the truth. I’m a teacher, Doctor, and a nanny. I know when someone is lying to me, even when they’re almost a thousand years old.” She met his eyes easily.

“You need them,” she stated. “Or, at least, you need her.”

It was quiet for a long moment.

_Everything I can’t be,_   
_Is everything you should be,_   
_And that’s why I need you here._   
_Everything I can’t be,_   
_(Everything I can’t be)_   
_Is everything you should be_   
_(Is everything you should be)_   
_And that’s why I need you here._

Clara was there when the Doctor was forced to wipe Donna’s memories to save her life.

And so was Rose.

The Human Doctor chose to stay in Pete’s World, claiming that two Doctors in the TARDIS was a bad idea and had already happened too many times. And so it was the Doctor and Rose and Clara – a small team of friends brought together by unlikely circumstances and even unlikelier timings. But it worked for them. They saved the world and ate chips and got coffee, and when Clara landed a teaching job, and Rose decided she wanted to finish her schooling, they rented a flat together and lived life between adventures.

Imagine their surprise when the Doctor showed up with not only a new face, but a couple of new companions as well - the married couple Clara had heard about before when she was searching fruitlessly for the Doctor. The four got along famously, though, and ended up adopting Clara and Rose’s “adventures on the weekends” lifestyle. It turned practically into a joint custody thing, with the Doctor bouncing back and forth between companions and occasionally throwing them all together for a really big adventure.

The girls they occasionally ran across who bore more than a striking resemblance to Clara were especially interesting.

_So hear this now:_   
_Come home, come home,_   
_‘cause I’ve been waiting for ya_   
_For so long, for so long,_   
_And right now there’s a war_   
_Between the vanities,_   
_But all I see is you and me._   
_And the fight for you is all I’ve ever known._   
_Ever known…_   
_So come… home…_

And when faced with an impossible situation, Rose gave Clara a kiss that glowed and tasted like starlight before watching her jump into the Doctor’s timestream. And then she waited, and she called on the TARDIS once again like she had so long ago, and the Bad Wolf brought the Doctor and the Impossible Girl back home.

_(Come home…)_   
_Come home, come home,_   
_I’ve been waiting for you._   
_(Come home…)_

**Author's Note:**

> Song used is "Come Home" by OneRepublic, featuring Sara Bareilles
> 
> This is hopefully going to be a series of (unrelated) drabbles about Impossible Wolf


End file.
